Summary
Video can be so much more than just a presentation aid and a way to engage stakeholders; it can also be a means to explore, understand, and convey deep human truths. Through the lens of documentary filmmakers and visual ethnographers, film can be a powerful medium with which to capture context and emotion, and tell nuanced stories. In this fireside chat with three design researchers who have extensive experience working with video and documentary techniques, you will hear how they integrate documentary filmmaking approaches and methods into their research practices.
Key Insights
-
•
Documentary filmmaking involves active collaboration between filmmaker and subjects, not passive observation.
-
•
Visual anthropology backgrounds help design researchers see cultural context and material culture as core story elements.
-
•
Video serves as both a data capture tool and a medium for thinking about and analyzing research information.
-
•
Authenticity in video research requires balancing participants’ self-representation with researchers’ storytelling perspectives.
-
•
Structured video scripts asking participants for environment and personal response shots improve remote video ethnography.
-
•
Multi-tiered video deliverables—from highlight clips to full contextualized stories—better serve diverse stakeholder needs.
-
•
Good storytelling in research videos helps insights travel through organizations, fostering empathy and shared understanding.
-
•
Video can connect remote and distributed teams by enabling collaborative synthesis sessions with rich audiovisual material.
-
•
Interpreting video data collaboratively uncovers multiple perspectives and challenges team assumptions.
-
•
Tools like Reduct’s Video Board facilitate organizing, tagging, and collaborative manipulation of video clips in research workflows.
Notable Quotes
"Film is not just a way to capture information, it’s a way to think about information."
"The fly on the wall approach is a myth; interaction between filmmaker and people is what makes documentary film interesting."
"If ethnographic film is just observational, then it’s just a security camera and a bank, and I want no part of it."
"We answer questions differently when we’re living life and doing activities than when we’re sitting down facing the camera."
"People now carry incredibly powerful cameras everywhere, changing how stories are told and represented."
"Great stories travel through organizations freely when they connect to what really moves and motivates people."
"Different stakeholders interpret stories differently, and those conversations are valuable for deeper understanding."
"Autoethnography and video diaries enable participants to capture aspects of their lives that researchers might not see otherwise."
"Contextualizing sound bites or clips is crucial; otherwise, they risk losing meaning when separated from their original story."
"Collaboration with participants via video is possible even in constricted remote or hybrid work environments with the right methods."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Meetings don’t exist for decision making but for brainstorming, catching up, and one-on-ones."
Ana FerreiraDesigning Distributed: Leading Doist’s Fully Remote Design Team in Six Countries
January 8, 2024
"The ride along is a richer experience than watching session recordings because you can interact in real time."
Roy Opata OlendeHow Zapier Uses ‘All Hands Research’ to Increase Exposure to Users
August 6, 2020
"Teams only think about a specific customer obsession persona and lose sight of upstream or downstream effects and other personas."
Kit Unger Jackie Ho Veevi Rosenstein Vasileios XanthopoulosTheme 2: Discussion
January 8, 2024
"Hands-on activities like practicing user interviews and design sprint sketches gave people courage to try UX tactics in the real world."
Abbey Smalley Sylas SouzaScaling UX Past the Size of Your Team
January 8, 2024
"Building skepticism into users is essential because if you’re not skeptical as a designer, it’s hard to build it into your customers."
Helen ArmstrongAugment the Human. Interrogate the System.
June 7, 2023
"Collaboration with participants via video is possible even in constricted remote or hybrid work environments with the right methods."
Bas Raijmakers, PhD (RCA) Charley Scull Prabhas PokharelWhat Design Research can Learn from Documentary Filmmaking
March 11, 2022
"Middle schoolers might ask you tough questions about release forms and how their data will be used."
Mila Kuznetsova Lucy DentonHow Lessons Learned from Our Youngest Users Can Help Us Evolve our Practices
March 9, 2022
"AI can’t experience data subjectively or fulfill curiosity, which drives human insight and discovery in qualitative research."
Weidan LiQualitative synthesis with ChatGPT: Better or worse than human intelligence?
June 4, 2024
"SAFe often turns UX into just digital or visual designers, which is wasteful and marginalizes valuable skills."
Christian CrumlishAMA with Christian Crumlish, author of Product Management for UX People
March 24, 2022
